REVIEW ARTICLE 81 the journal New Left Review. Despite an erudite and provocative analysis, Andcrson's critique, a series of three lectures, was too brief and historical to stem the postmarxist tide. Wood's and Geras' critiques, on the other hand, were marred both by their vituperative and ad hominem attacks on writers and positions whom even they conceded were 'well-intentioned', as well as their failure to take their challengers—theoretically and politically—seriously. While some have seen the Geras and Wood pieces as adequate responses to postmarxist 'excesses' and exposing the latter's vacuity, it is more plausible to suggest that, on the contrary, they have revealed a theoretical unsophistication, political flat-footedness and lack of comradely respect from the marxist camp that is, to say the least, disappointing. So it is with interest that one awaits an informed and theoretically grounded response to these challenges from a marxist philosopher and activist. Callinicos' book should be seen in this context of a general attempt by marxist theorists to respond to these challenges. The following critical remarks are intended as an invitation to debate in ways that I think fruitful for both marxism and postmodernism. However, it should be made explicit at the start how I am approaching the book. I want to suggest that through a careful reading we can throw light on marxism (through the ways in which it responds to the theoretical and political challenges emerging from outside the traditional sources of the socialist movement) rather than on postmodernism per se. THE BOOK'S PREMISE It is clear from the title of the book that this is intended as a defence of marxism, putting a clear distance between marxism and other positions. Why would postmodernism trouble a marxist? Because, Callinicos argues, the trend towards 'postmarxism* is reinforced by the idea of a 'break' in contemporary society (from modernism or capitalism) to a new phase which 'requires a different kind of politics*. He flatly rejects all talk of a new stage of capitalism or type of society 'fundamentally different from the capitalist mode of production globally dominant for the past two centuries'. This conceptual tool has all the precision of a sledgehammer (lumping together conditions in 1800 and 1990 and between say, Zaire and Belgium as 'fundamentally the same'), but it provides marxism with an alternative diagnosis of society. Contrary to postmarxism, he seeks 'the reaffirmation of the revolutionary socialist tradition' of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Gramsci, which implies of course the reaffirmation of the centrality of the working-class as the universal subject and agent of human emancipation. From this premise, that nothing has really changed, he is logically led to the question: why then all the talk of change? Since